I Trade What I See

According to Bespoke Investment Group, the average analyst estimates are for the S&P 500 to gain 8% in 2013. At the current pace, it will hit that mark Monday morning -- which makes for a pretty short year.

It was a frenzy of buying today, and the fact that so many were poorly positioned -- and it was the first day of the new year -- pushed the market up even more. No one wants to start with lagging performance, but unless you started the day fully loaded with longs, it was tough to keep pace.

Typically, a big day like today tends to produce momentum because so many folks worry that this market is going to run away from them. That is what happened last year, and I'm sure many are looking at the chart from the first quarter and wondering if we could see that sort of straight-up move again.

I doubt that is going to occur, but don't be in any hurry to fight the strength. The mentality in recent years has been to chase to a greater degree than previously; once it starts, it tends to feed on itself.

I always have mixed feelings about action like today's. While it is nice to have good gains, I never have enough capital at work and there are limits to my interest in chasing momentum. At the end of the day, there was very little that looked technically interesting to me.

There are plenty of folks on both sides trying to predict which way the market goes from here. My view is that I'm going to trade what I see, and what I see is a strong market. Until that shifts, I'll maintain a bullish bias.

Have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.

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